


here I am and here we go again

by perculious



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Feelings, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-10-31 07:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17844785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perculious/pseuds/perculious
Summary: Two years after the defeat of the Chimera Ants, Killua agrees to take Gon on a trip. It's awkward.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> WHAT Dark Continent arc? I don't know her. The second chapter of this is already mostly written, so don't worry, this will not be an eternal WIP. Title is from "Sort Of" by Ingrid Michaelson.

The first day Killua wakes up and Gon is gone, it feels like the world's ended. It feels like someone blew a cannonball right through his middle and took out all his insides. It sucks.

He spends a few minutes blinking up at the ceiling feeling sorry for himself and then he thinks, _This is stupid_. And then he thinks, _I thought I had higher pain tolerance than this_.

He’s been without Gon for a long time now. Even before Gon was in a hospital bed, he was already lost to his guilt about Kite and whatever else made his eyes shade over when he looked at Killua. Plus, Killua’s been planning to leave for ages, and he even practiced with all of those solo missions back in East Gorteau—and plus, he’s traveling with Alluka now. So to get hurt just because Gon’s off climbing a tree is just really, really dumb. He rolls over and buries his face in his pillow until tears stop leaking from it.

If it's his first day without Gon, it means it's his first day truly with Alluka. Killua sets to work hiding their tracks from the Zoldyck family. He may have shown that her powers are no threat to them, but there's no way he believes Illumi would give up on something he wants. Not Silva or Xeno either. He reaches out to Kurapika for the contact info of some underworld guy who can give them new documents and identities. They're going to have to change locations frequently, never drawing too much attention.

After a few weeks, he misses Gon a little less. Then it gets much worse. Then better. Always these steps forward and back, up and down, the whole experience consisting of enough feelings to make Killua wish Illumi had been right when he’d said Killua wasn’t capable of them. At the best times the feelings are distant, not relevant to his life making daisy chains with Alluka and introducing her to his favorite snacks. Sometimes he misses Gon so much the absence suffocates him, making the air he breathes feel thin and insufficient. When it's bad it feels like the good times don't count, and when it's good he gets mad at his past self for being so pointlessly sad.

He runs into Bisky in a town outside Yorknew. "We parted ways," he says when she asks. 

She pats him on the head and says, “The first broken heart is the worst." Killua groans loudly and wiggles out from under her affectionate hand.

“It’s not like that,” he says, crossing his arms. Bisky cackles knowingly. Killua reaches over and tries to pull on her braid, but she flicks him away with her thumb and forefinger and tells him he better train more if wants to try that.

Is it like that, though? The phrase _broken heart_ , if you ignore the gross sappy stuff, sounds like how he feels. There are pieces of him that don’t fit together like they used to. There are jagged edges he keeps tripping over. When he sees a couple of kids playing janken on the street, he feels like he’s been sucker punched. It’s a type of pain he’s completely unskilled in avoiding. It just makes him annoyed: at Gon, at himself, at the whole world for making this happen to him.

Gon calls Killua’s cellphone, infrequently at first, then more and more often. Killua gets used to holding the phone away from his ear when Gon yells _KILLUUAAAAAAA!!!_ (“You’re making me go deaf,” he complains the first ten times Gon does it, but Gon does it anyway.) The sound of his ringtone is enough to send his heart rate spiraling, enough that Alluka notices. “Nii-chan cares more about his phone than his Hunter License,” she says, giggling, and Killua feels his traitorous face go red.

At first it’s a thrill every time: Gon’s thinking of him! Then it becomes clear that Gon is just bored. Killua means adventure and fighting. Gon’s old life. He always cared about that stuff more than he cared if Killua was beside him to do it. And talking to Gon makes Killua useless for the rest of the day, full of alternating grief and anger at himself for not pulling it together. So he starts ignoring his phone, even leaving it in whatever room they’re staying in while he and Alluka explore. _Sorry I’ve been really busy,_ he texts, and doesn’t look at the response.

Time passes. Everything falls into the past. Some details of NGL and East Gorteau start to fade. (Other details are burned into the space behind his eyes.)

Alluka turns twelve, the age Killua was when he took the Hunter Exam for the first time. It’s one of his favorite memories: meeting Gon, and the leap of delight whenever Gon surprised him, the first thing that had interested him since he left home. Now he thinks about it and his heart is still. No rush of feelings. In his memory, Gon’s insistence on persevering despite all odds seems less admirable than it did before. What were they even chasing with all that effort? Strength? Glory? Ging? None of it ever applied to Killua, and yet sometimes he can still feel his life draining from his body on the floor of an underwater cave in East Gorteau.

Sometimes the Hunter Association calls and asks him to take on projects, and sometimes he even accepts, after making arrangements for Alluka’s safety. He tries to leave Alluka with Bisky, who he trusts the most, but after the first visit she came back knowing how to put someone in a headlock. So he starts making arrangements with Leorio and Kurapika, who barely know him but clearly still feel loyalty under the bond that Gon forced them all to believe in. _Just because Gon said we were friends doesn’t mean we have to be friends_ , Killua wants to tell them, but he doesn’t, because their dumb faces are always smiling when they see him.

Alluka makes friends everywhere they go. Not just adults who pat her on the head when she smiles, but kids her age. Killua sometimes loses sight of her at a market and finds her in animated conversation with a group of kids, chatting about the wares on display or their families. Killua doesn’t have a lot to talk about with kids his age who don’t have any combat experience.

He fights for money, which is boring but effective. Sometimes he runs up against a kid training in martial arts, like Zushi. (Another person Killua was friends with because Gon said he was.) Whenever it’s a kid, Killua pretends to struggle so they feel better about losing. Sometimes he chats with them, and a few times they even pick up a traveling companion for the space of a few weeks or months. It never feels like the early days with Gon did, like Killua is flying and nothing could go wrong. But it never goes bad the way things went bad with Gon either.

Time passes. Gon is still on Whale Island. Killua thinks about him less and less.

-

“Mito-san, plleeeaa _aaaaassseeeeeee!!!!!_ ”

Mito crosses her arms. “I said no, didn’t I?” she says. “You’re a healthy boy, so I know you heard me. Do you think I came by this decision easily? Do you think a little word like ‘please’ is going to change my mind?”

“But, _Mito-san!_ ” Gon falls to his knees and slams his hands on the floor, prostrating himself in front of her. “I’ll do anything you want. I’ll do double my chores for the whole year!”

Mito turns her face away, eyes defiantly closed. “And how will you do those chores if you’re dead? You think I can trust that you'll come home after what happened last time?”

“Please,” Gon says again, peeking up at her. If it were up to him, Mito wouldn't even know what happened last time. Morel and Knov visited him a few months after he returned home, clapped him on the back and announced to Mito that her son was a hero. And then everything had to come out. Mito was so furious she barely spoke to him for weeks. The worst part is that even though she doesn't really get Nen, she understood that whatever power has been keeping Gon alive through his adventures has dried up. Now any chance he has of leaving the island with her blessing is gone. He isn't unkind enough to leave without it.

It’s been two years of sitting around, doing homework and chores until his brain hurts. Two years of lying in the moss on the forest floor, so still the birds land on him and he can almost understand their conversations. Two years of fishing and hunting and swinging through the trees, wrestling with wolf cubs, bumping noses with seals under the water. Stalking slithery little garter snakes, sprinting after startled hares. He is so. BORED!!!!

"Absolutely not, and that's that."

Gon fumes all the way through dinner, cramming forkfuls of roast fish sulkily into his mouth. If he can’t leave the island he’s going to die.

He doesn’t speak to Mito for another whole day, and she doesn’t speak to him either, although he can tell from the way she exhales sharply through her nose when she looks in his direction that she’s annoyed.

Finally, she breaks. “Can’t you at least understand why I don’t want you to go?”

“Of course I do,” Gon yelps, eager to jump back into the argument. “But it’ll be safe, even without Nen. I’m only going to be around other Hunters!” And he’s still a Hunter. They didn’t take his license away, even if he’s ruined.

Mito hadn’t even planned to tell him. Gon had to find the letter himself, tucked away in a basket near the door. _Gon Freecss is invited to a commendation ceremony honoring those who fought the Chimera Ants in East Gorteau._

He gets where Mito is coming from. It's not just what happened back then. She's watched him in the two years since, struggling with his newfound aimlessness, threatened by black waves of despair. It's nearly pulled him under more than once. He knows she has good reasons to worry about him.

But he also knows that her biggest weakness is that she loves him.

Mito’s face creases into exhaustion. “I just don’t want you to go thinking it’ll be like it was before. You’re vulnerable. If there’s a threat, I’m worried you wouldn’t let someone else handle it.”

Gon lets this roll over him, concealing his shudder. Maybe he is vulnerable, but he despises it.

“I know it won’t be the same,” he says. Despite his best efforts, a tiny note of bitterness creeps in. “But it’s something to show for... everything that happened.” The bargain he made. Trading his future for one battle and almost dying anyway.

“Please,” he says again. Mortifyingly, his voice almost cracks. “I won’t ask to leave again. I have to go.”

Gon can see from the way Mito’s shoulders shift that she’s wavering. He doesn’t push it anymore, just watches her face change, her brow softening.

“You can’t go alone,” she says finally, putting her fists on her hips. “Find someone to take you, and you can go.”

“Thank you!!! Thank you, Mito-san, thank you, _thank you_ —”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Mito glares him down. “You can thank me by coming back safe. I don’t want empty promises this time.”

Gon settles, lowering his eyes and bowing his head slightly in acknowledgment. “I won’t do anything stupid.”

“I can’t ask for that,” Mito says. “I just want you to come home.”

-

Gon wakes up before daybreak on the day Killua is supposed to arrive. He’d wanted to sleep out on the rocks near the ocean, so he could be sure to see the ship the second it crested the horizon. But Mito insisted he had to stay in the house at least for the last night before he left. He races to the sea as soon as the sky begins to pinken and squints into the sunrise.

Gon hasn’t even talked to Killua in forever. He's really bad at remembering to text back! It took him ages to even respond to Gon’s e-mails asking if they could go together to the ceremony. His responses had been really boring too— _Sure. What time_. Nothing of the zip that Gon remembers from when they used to fight side by side.

So he’s more than ready to see Killua in the flesh. If he can’t get his Nen back, the crackling energy of being with Killua has to be the second best thing.

First there are hours and hours of waiting around. After fishing for his breakfast and gorging himself on a plot of wild strawberries, there’s nothing to do but pace in the growing sunlight, his pulse climbing with the morning temperature. Finally, after nine million thousand years, he sees it. The ship! Out at sea! Except it’s coming towards them slower than anything Gon’s ever seen, slower than the worms that squiggle across his path after it rains.

Gon has to wait another ten years before the ship finally docks and people start streaming down the gangway, and then finally, finally, there’s a tuft of white fluff and slanted blue eyes a shade halfway between the sky above and the ocean below. It’s Killua. Killua is there, right in front of him, older and taller and a little broader in the shoulders (Gon touches his own self-consciously—could he still open the Testing Gate now?), but it’s him.

“KILLUA!” Gon shrieks, waving with both arms. Killua’s blue eyes meet his, and his heart breaks open, spilling golden light all through his body.

Something sparks in Killua's eyes, then quickly dies. He doesn't smile.

Instead, he folds in on himself, his shoulders hunching inward. He shoves his hands in his pockets and slinks over to Gon. "Hi."

“Um.” Gon wants to pull him into a big, bone-cracking hug, but something about the set of Killua's spine warns him to stay back. “Mito-san wanted me to invite you to lunch while the boat re-stocks.”

“Sure.” Killua shrugs. Killua has always been unreadable, and so very cool. Maybe this is just what he's like, and Gon has to remember more clearly.

Killua greets Mito politely, still as out of place in Gon’s family home as he was at age twelve. Mito fawns over him anyway, pushing more food on him whenever he finishes a dish. Gon knows Killua doesn't get along with his family. Maybe it's that aura of parentlessness that makes Mito feel like she has to be five mothers to him at once. She thanks him multiple times for "looking after Gon," which makes Gon want to burst into flames and fall into a pile of ashes.

Gon doesn’t push Killua to talk during lunch. There’s always been a side of him that comes out when they’re away from adults (Mito, Killua’s family, Bisky). He’s itching to see it—that glint in Killua’s eye when they're working on something together. Even if it’s only an airship ride to Swaldani City.

When lunch is over, Mito loads them down with food for the trip. Her hands linger on Gon’s shoulders before she squeezes, lets go, and waves him off. They scramble back to the dock, feet light on the springy grass. For the first time in two years, things feel right.

-

“Killua, where’s your sister?”

Killua is looking out at the ocean, leaning his elbows against the ship’s railing and propping his face up with his hands. Gon is sitting astride the rail next to him, one foot kicking over the deck and one catching the occasional spray from the bouncing waves.

The boat's movement resonates with his energy, leaping up and down with dizzy joy. Everywhere the sea air brushes his skin, he feels activated and alive. He wants to grab Killua and swing him around.

Killua is more reserved. He watches the waves like he's trying to break their code.

“With Leorio and Kurapika.”

“Why didn't you bring her here?"

The wind throws Killua's hair into his face no matter how often he pushes it away. He gives up, letting white wisps lash his cheeks and forehead.

“I’m going on a mission for the Hunter Association right after this. So I wanted her to be somewhere safe.”

“Oh.” Two years of almost no news washes over Gon and leaves him a little woozy. Killua works for the Hunter Association? Gon doesn’t know what he was picturing. Killua traveling the world having adventures like Ging, maybe. “What kind of Hunter are you?”

“Dunno. Whatever they need, I guess.”

“Oh.” Gon kicks his feet a little harder, determined not to let Killua’s weird quietness take over the conversation. He’s been out of the loop for so long, and right now his fingertips are finally scratching at the outside of the glass. He needs Killua to let him in. “Where do Leorio and Kurapika live?”

“Dunno.” Killua sinks a little lower into his slouch. “Don’t remember the name of the town. Kurapika doesn’t really stay in one place anyway. I guess I should have said she’s with Leorio.”

“But they live together?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s cool!”

“I guess.”

“Killuaaaa.” Gon swings one of his feet up onto the railing and nudges Killua’s shoulder with his toe. “Why don’t you want to tell me about it?”

“Mm.”

Gon wasn’t sure of it earlier, but now he is. Killua is avoiding looking at him. He wants to make him look, like he made Netero use his right hand to defend himself years ago.

He gives up for now, slinging his hands around his knee and leaning back to look at the sky. “I wish I could visit them.”

“It’s not that great. They just argue all the time.”

“Why do they live together, then?”

Killua looks at him then, just a frank glance out of the corner of his eyes. “Are you serious? You don’t know this?”

Gon’s stomach lurches down and then up again, out of sync with the waves. He knows he’s missed a lot, but Killua doesn’t have to bring attention to it. For this trip especially, he just wants to feel like things are back to normal. Like he’s back to normal.

Instead of acting like Gon’s dumb for not knowing things, Killua could have just talked to him months ago. He doesn’t want to say that.

“I guess not.”

“They’re together. Like, together. Romantically. It’s annoying.”

Gon almost falls sideways into the ocean. He swings both legs around to the inside of the boat, clutching the railing with his fingers. “Seriously??”

“Yeah. For ages now.”

Gon’s fingers tighten against the railing until his knuckles turn white. He struggles to manage the feeling surging through him. His brain is full of memories of Leorio and Kurapika—fighting on this very boat, fighting in an elevator, fighting during the exam. He’s not surprised that there was love behind it, but this kind?

Should it be surprising? Gon remembers Killua asking him years ago if he’d ever been on a date. He’d felt so experienced then, but now it's like Killua is speaking another language. He hasn’t been on one since parting ways with Killua. What does it feel like, to look at someone and know you want to be with them?

Gon is so caught off guard, he blurts out his first thought. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Killua frowns at him sideways. These are not the kinds of looks Gon wanted from him.

“Do what?”

_Date people._ Gon doesn’t say that—it would sound so stupid. It’s not what he means anyway, but he can’t figure out how to say what he means. How can you just go from being friends with someone, liking them, to dating them? His brain has never tried to bridge this particular gap before.

“I’m just surprised, I guess!”

Killua’s back to ignoring him anyway. He stares into the ocean, his eyes glassy, like he’s thinking about something else entirely. Some kind of urgency crawls up Gon’s throat and squeezes tight. He needs Killua to pay attention to him. _Look at me_ , he pleads silently, his eyes tracing Killua’s profile.

Then Killua does turn, and for a moment Gon’s muscles go weak and he almost falls off the ship again. “I’m gonna go below deck. It’s a long boat ride.”

It’s clear he’s not inviting Gon to come with him.

“Okay,” Gon says, trying not to sound deflated. Killua shambles away.

But it’s not a long boat ride at all. They’ve done it together before, giddily sailing to Yorknew and scheming how to raise money for Greed Island. And after the ceremony Killua is going on some mission. So all they have is this boat ride, plus an overnight airship trip, plus a few days in a hotel before the ceremony, which they might not spend together. And then the trip back home. And then Gon might not see Killua again for another two years.

Gon's not always good at understanding complicated situations. He wants it to be just his stupid misunderstanding. He doesn’t want there to be something wrong.

-

Killua reemerges when they reach the mainland. He’s still weird on the way to the airship station, claiming he’s too tired to chat. Like they don’t both know that Killua barely needs sleep.

“Do you remember when we did this during the Hunter Exam?”

“What, rode an airship? Yeah, Gon, it was thrilling.”

Killua’s strides keep lengthening. Gon pushes forward to stay at his side.

“It was my first time on one ever.”

“Mm.”

It’s not the airship ride he wants to talk about though. It’s everything around it. It was the place where Killua told Gon about his family. Where Gon and Killua tried to get the ball from Netero, one of the first times they teamed up in combat. Where Gon got to see Killua’s assassin techniques. It was the heady beginning of their friendship, when Killua came into his life all tangled up with new experiences and the excitement of competition in a way that made Gon immediately adore him.

He just wants Killua to like him again.

They pick up their tickets and get on the ship. Gon keeps sneaking looks at Killua, hoping to catch him looking his way, but he never is.

Things are awkward on the ship, when they drop their stuff off in the plush private room the Hunter Association has arranged for them. They're awkward when they struggle through a quiet dinner delivered to their cabin, and awkward when Killua disappears to go for a walk, leaving Gon to wander on his own. Eventually he gets worn out and curls up in one of the small bunks to sleep. Killua slips into the room once it's dark, settling into the other bed.

Gon can hear him breathing in the dark.

How could Killua be mad at him? They haven't seen each other for two years, and Killua wasn't mad then. What could Gon have done to offend Killua when he's been trapped on an island?

"Killua," he says softly.

There's a shuffling sound of Killua turning over in the bed. "What?"

"Do you miss your sister?"

There's a measured silence. Then Killua says, "Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not a big deal."

Gon stares at the ceiling, although it's too dark to actually see it. There's a thought that's been chasing its own tail around his head for hours.

"Hey, Killua? You know Leorio and Kurapika?"

"Mm."

"Did you know they liked each other? I mean, that way?"

Killua shifts again. Not seeing his face makes his reactions a mystery. It makes it easier for Gon to say what he wants.

"I kind of thought so."

"Oh. I really didn't know."

The sound of a soft exhalation in the still air. "You were paying attention to other stuff."

"Well, I was thinking." He takes a deep breath, opening his eyes wide into the dark. "Why didn't _we_ ever date? Back then?"

The silence stretches so long Gon starts to worry that Killua fell asleep. There is no movement from Killua's side of the room, not even the sound of his breath.

Finally Killua says, "Why would you say that?" His voice is restrained, the sonic equivalent of the way he is at the beginning of a fight, keeping back his abilities so the other party won't know what they're dealing with.

"Just—we were much closer than Leorio and Kurapika. Did you ever think about it?"

Killua doesn't answer. Gon fidgets minutely, tapping his fingers on the sheets.

"No."

"Me neither. But I was just wondering why not."

Killua shifts again. From his voice, it sounds like he's speaking partially into the pillow. "You have to have feelings for each other, Gon. You can't just want to compete with Leorio and Kurapika."

"I'm not! I'm being serious! I think we should have gone on a date. At least once."

"Go to sleep, Gon." Killua's voice is almost entirely muffled now.

"Killua—"

"I'm going to sleep. Leave me alone."

The sheets rustle again. Gon guesses it's Killua turning his back towards him.

He doesn’t move, staring into the darkness.

There’s more to say, and since Killua won’t let him say it, it’s bouncing around in the hollow of his chest, keeping him from settling down. Gon wants Killua to talk to him. He wants to be closer to Killua in any way possible: talking more, laughing more, catching Killua’s eye and watching him grin as he reads Gon’s mind, snoozing back to back in a canyon on Greed Island.

The thing is, he’s pretty sure he feels whatever Leorio and Kurapika felt. The thing, the more-ness that differentiates this friendship from others. The thing that makes Killua burn like white fire in his memories, brighter than anyone he’s ever met. Gon wants to lie next to him on a cliff on Whale Island and talk about their futures. He wants to snake his hand down and thread his fingers through Killua’s, press their palms together and feel Killua’s pulse through the vein in the swell underneath his thumb. He wants to say Killua’s name and watch Killua’s face turn towards him, the world slowly righting itself as their gazes connect.

Gon turns to the side, throwing his arm over his head. Whatever. If Killua doesn't want to talk, then Gon doesn't want to talk to him either. He's survived the past few years without Killua, and gone through much worse in his life than a dumb silent treatment, anyway.

His next breath trembles. He’s been through worse than this, but not without consequences. Two years of darkness yawn underneath him. Killua doesn’t understand what this trip means to him.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

-

Gon wakes up to the blare of a klaxon. He lifts his head, scrubbing his hands over his eyes. His head feels stuffy and hot. The few hours of sleep he got were restless, full of stress dreams about Killua falling away from him, unable to be saved from the jaws of some giant monster. He wishes his subconscious would get the memo that he's not supposed to fight monsters anymore.

Killua's face swims into his vision now, looking aggravated. The sight of him forcefully reminds Gon of last night's revelations. He'd thought maybe Killua was right, maybe he wanted something to be there that wasn't just so he wouldn't be left out of the romance his friends were having. But the sight Killua's face causes his chest to spasm dramatically. He blinks the bleariness out of his eyes.

"What's going on?"

"Emergency landing," Killua says. "Something went wrong with the ship's fuel supply."

"Seriously?"

Killua shrugs. Gon can see that he's getting his things together, readying to disembark. He turns his back toward Gon to change clothes, pulling his shirt over his head, and Gon quickly turns away, his stomach clenching.

The alarm siren pulses red into his skull. Pieces of the morning are falling together slowly, and he wonders, as he does a thousand times a day, if this would be easier if he still had Nen. Did it make his reflexes faster, his energy level higher, his muscles a little stronger? Or was he just happier back then?

"Can we get another ship?"

Killua shakes his head. "I don't know."

It takes a long time for the airship to lower itself, like some giant bird carefully situating itself atop its nest. By the time it alights, the siren has been turned off, and Killua has slipped away to figure out the situation with their transport. Just because he's the one who still has Nen doesn't mean he has to act like he's the only one who can figure out an airship schedule. But fine. Whatever.

The big ship groans its way into the dirt. Gon streams out into the hallway with all the other confused, diverted travelers. A toddler catches his eye and he gives her a big grin and a thumbs up.

As he walks outside, a hand touches his shoulder, and he jumps back, raising his hands out of habit. But it's Killua.

He’s wearing a new outfit, a gray tank top and slouchy white pants, with a set of black beaded bracelets clacking against one wrist. Gon takes in the way the angles of his body meet each other, the line from his narrow shoulders up to his delicate neck. He’s like an instrument crafted by some master artisan.

"No luck," Killua says. "The next station isn't for a hundred miles, and they're not flying to Swaldani anyway. The airship company is providing trucks back to where we started."

"Oh." Gon glances around. They've descended into a big open space, a clearing with scraggly patches of brown grass doing their best to cover the ground. To Gon's left and right are sparse forest. "Well, we're not that far though, right? Can't we just go on foot?"

"It'll be a couple days' walk."

"So? We have time before the ceremony."

There's tension vibrating through Killua's body. It's in the set of his shoulders and the clench of his jaw.

"I guess we'll have to," he says.

"Come on, we used to travel around together all the time! It'll be fun!"

Killua's face darkens, his eyebrows drawing slightly inward in the slightest expression of distress. It somehow makes his face look even more elegant. He stares at a spot in the dirt.

"Okay."

He hikes his backpack up on one shoulder, turns, and starts to stalk away. Gon guesses he means for Gon to follow him, but it feels like being abandoned.

He stands there, arms hanging uselessly at his sides, as Killua resolutely departs. Something is burning in him. He opens his mouth without fully knowing what he's going to say.

" _What did I do wrong?_ "

That stops Killua. He turns, glancing guiltily at the crowd of people still milling out of the airship, none of whom are looking their way. The sunlight catches tufts of his hair, pale enough that it seems to trap the light within itself.

"It's not..." he starts. He looks at the ground, then looks at the sky, then exhales a frustrated breath. "You didn't. I mean, it's..."

"Just tell me!" Gon crosses his arms over his chest. It's not fair to be punished for something he doesn't understand.

"It's not that!" Killua shoves his hands deep into his pockets, his shoulders hunching up near his ears. "It's not like I'm mad about something you did, okay? I just..." His big blue eyes slant to the side, like he's looking for a way out of this conversation. A little ember of righteous anger smolders under Gon's breastbone. "I don't _want_ it to be like the old days."

The fire flares up. Gon blinks back the hurt. "What was wrong with the old days?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Killua mumbles towards the dirt. Gon knows, more than anyone, how deadly Killua is, but right now he looks small and vulnerable.

"Why did you agree to come with me at all, then?"

Killua's eyes snap upward to meet Gon's with a flash. Gon's breath stumbles.

"Because I didn't want anything bad to happen to you! I thought if I said no you'd go by yourself and do something stupid."

Shame washes over Gon, but he punches it back, beating it down with the ferocity he once reserved for bad guys. Yes, he's weak. No, he can't take care of himself. But he's living with it, and he never asked for Killua's pity or his help. If Killua cares about Gon, he could have visited at least once in two years. He could have called or written. Gon doesn't want to hear that Killua is trying to protect him now, not if it's out of some weird sense of obligation, not if Killua doesn't even like him anymore.

"If I do something stupid, that's not your responsibility. You can go home if you want. I'll go by myself."

Gon stares him down, squaring his shoulders. Killua glares back. Finally, he shifts, shrinking a little more into himself. For someone as strong as Killua, he sometimes seems like he could disappear entirely in a patch of dappled sunlight. "I want to go with you, Gon."

"Okay. So stop treating me like I'm annoying you by being here."

Killua looks up at the sky again for help. It doesn't seem to give him any. "I'll try."

"Thank you."

Killua turns again, and this time Gon follows after him.

-

They make their way into the forest, moving vaguely north. The shade is nice once the sun climbs higher into the air, beaming hot rays down on them that pull sweat down Gon's face.

It doesn't dampen his energy, though. Killua's body language is relaxing inch by inch, the tension slowly draining from his shoulders and back. Gon keeps sneaking peeks at him to check, his heart thrilling when the light catches Killua's face and sparkles in his eyes.

Gon asks him about his work for the Hunter Association, and this time Killua actually answers, albeit with a scowl.

"Nothing better to do, and they pay well."

"What do you mean, you have nothing better to do?" If Gon still had his Nen, he could think of a hundred million things more fun to do than quietly accept missions. The best Hunters are discoverers—of new animals, ancient ruins, new peoples, new magic, new countries! How can Killua discover anything if he only goes to places the Association already knows about?

Killua shrugs a shoulder, stepping over a big tree root. Gon forgot how catlike his movements were. How fascinating to watch him navigate his surroundings with such silent grace. "I don't really care about that stuff, Gon. I just became a Hunter to piss off my family."

"Huh?? But we used to do all that fun stuff!"

Killua slants a look at him. Gon's breath jumps. What's that about, anyway? He never used to feel this hungry for Killua's attention, but then, he's never had to work for it before. Killua has always been just behind him, ready to meet his gaze and guess at his thoughts. Did he do the same for Killua? He can't remember. He skips over a puddle of mud, drying quickly in the sun.

"Was it fun?" Killua says.

"Yeah, of course!"

"Hm." Killua looks back ahead into the woods.

"And anyway, you can't get stronger if you're not out there on the frontier."

Obviously, there are limits to Killua's new openness, because he seizes up with a frown. "I didn't ask for your opinion."

But Gon wants to know Killua's opinion. It wasn't meant to be an insult. It just doesn't make sense, and he wants to understand. Is Killua okay? Gon wouldn't be happy accepting duties from the Association. In fact, he would be miserable, like he has been—but that's not something he thinks about anymore.

Killua obviously senses Gon's dissatisfaction, because he aims a kick at a pebble and says, "If I was out running dangerous missions all the time, I wouldn't be able to take care of Alluka. Working for the Association is just a way to get money so I can spend most of my time with her. That's my life. Not being a Hunter."

Gon chews this over, looking away from Killua so he can think more clearly. He can't think of a single person in his life whose company he'd take over being a Hunter.

"Other people can get stronger than me, I don't care. What's the reward for being the strongest, Gon? Like Netero? Bickering with bureaucrats your whole life and then dying in a hole when you finally find someone stronger than you? What's the point?"

"But..." Gon's head is spinning. Does Killua think Netero died for no reason? _He saved everyone_ , Gon wants to say, but he holds back, because that's not the real reason this doesn't make sense. Gon wants to be strong to protect the people he loves and to do what's right. But Killua's right that if he's not the strongest, someone else will be. There will be someone else to face the next wave of Ants, or whatever threat is next. So why is it so important for it to be Gon?

"Was that too complicated for you?"

Killua's smiling, kind of a mean smile, and Gon knows he's being made fun of. But it is too complicated. He wants to sit down.

Netero gave his life to defeat the Ants, and never before has Gon thought that was a tragedy. Surely that's the point—dying in battle, dying for a reason, the thrill of using your whole strength, strategizing and maneuvering and striking, the purest exhilaration, even if in the end you're not good enough. Killua was a better fighter than Gon for so long. Gon never questioned if Killua liked it.

"It's just not what I'd do," Gon mutters finally. He doesn't like Killua sniping at him and he doesn't like sniping at Killua. It feels different from how they used to bicker, and it makes his head hurt.

-

They keep moving, following a burbling little stream out of the forest and into a rocky plain streaked with crevices. They chat occasionally, Killua telling Gon stories about his life and his sister, about Kurapika and Leorio and Knov and Morel and Bisky. Killua never asks Gon anything about his life, and Gon gets why, although he wishes he didn’t. Killua—all of them, Leorio and Kurapika too—knew when Gon came back to Whale Island that his life was basically over, and they all left him to it. What more is there to say? Gon's not mad, really. He doesn't know what to do with himself either.

And what is he going to tell Killua about? That time he found a cool mushroom under a tree? The nauseating shock of ending up with a life you didn't plan to be alive for? The hours and days and weeks he's spent clawing his way back? To feel like it's old times again, Gon has to keep pretending the last two years never happened.

But something has changed. He keeps looking at Killua, and he doesn’t want to drag his eyes away. Did blood always rush to his head when their hands brushed? He thinks he remembers that it did, but he was too busy with other things to care. Now Killua is all he can think about.

“Killua,” Gon says carefully. The kick of his pulse thrums through his blood and makes him feel alive. “You know what I was saying last night? About us dating?”

The space between them fills with deliberate silence. Killua’s eyes track his feet as he navigates the rocks.

“I was just thinking. We still could try it. Going on a date.”

“Mm.” Killua looks determinedly away from Gon, turning so that Gon mostly sees his back. Gon can’t sense aura anymore, but he can feel the temperature between them drop into frostiness.

“What do you think?” Gon presses. He’s not going to let Killua sidle away from this one. He wants to do for Killua what he did for Palm once upon a time—make his face light up and make him feel special. He wants to plan a whole day to make Killua happy.

“No thanks,” Killua mumbles.

“Why not?”

Killua skips a few steps ahead, pulling away from Gon. “Not interested.”

“It wouldn’t have to be a big deal. I’d plan everything. You would just have to show up, and if you don’t like it, I’ll never ask again.”

“I won’t like it, so stop asking.”

“How do you know that?”

Killua stops in his tracks, almost making Gon run into him. He turns, and the look on his face could crumble a mountain into dust.

“Gon. Stop talking about it.”

“Why?”

“I said stop, okay?” Even though Killua’s mad, Gon can’t help but be struck by the planes of his face, the way the sun tips his eyelashes in gold. What is wrong with him??

He wants to keep pushing, because Killua still hasn’t explained anything. What could be wrong with one little date? But he just got Killua to talk to him again, so he can back off for now.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Killua turns and slams his open palm against a tree. Lightning skips from his fingertips and arcs upward, silencing a large pheasant that had been sitting on a branch. Killua stands motionless, breathing heavily, while the bird silently falls, hitting the ground with a soft thump.

“Dinner,” Killua says dully. He drops his hands. Gon watches him, thinking hard.

-

Gon skins the pheasant while Killua builds a fire. They spent a lot of nights outside during their travels, but with the rocky terrain it reminds Gon most acutely of Greed Island. All those nights with Bisky dropping stuff on their heads until they learned to stay alert. Gon still wakes at the drop of a pin. Now it's just an annoyance.

Killua keeps a careful distance between them. He puts the fire between himself and Gon while they eat, and when they settle down to sleep, he curls up about ten feet away. Gon can't help but feel like Killua is responding to Gon's desire to be close, shying away like a repelled magnet.

“Hey, Killua?” he says when they’ve stretched out on the rocks, the stars spread out above them like salt spilled across the tablecloth.

“Mm.”

“After this, when I go back to Whale Island. Do you think we’ll ever see each other again?”

No movement from Killua’s patch of rock. Gon falls asleep waiting for a response.

-

The next day, the hostile surroundings melt away in patches to reveal little clusters of houses, huddled little towns. They even stop at an inn for breakfast, wolfing down bread and fruit and porridge before moving on. Gon tries to keep the conversation light, avoiding the topic of his own life and focusing on Killua's. But Killua still seems a little sore about their conversation from yesterday. Reminiscing about their old adventures just makes Killua even moodier, so Gon gives up. Killua's not mad at him anymore, at least it doesn't seem like it—he doesn't pull back or get tense when Gon tries to talk to him about this stuff. He just doesn't respond like Gon wants him to. Killua used to be easy to pull into an argument or a competition. Now he just shrugs and sighs, lifeless.

Has Killua changed? Is he sadder, calmer, quieter? Or is he just like this with Gon?

Gon doesn't bring up dating again, but he thinks about it. He thinks about how nice it would be to clasp Killua's hand while they walk, or to feel Killua lean over and brush his lips against Gon's cheek.

In the years since they've parted, Gon's never had a friend like him. Has Killua found another best friend? Has he dated anyone in the past two years? Does he have someone he likes right now? These questions are too dangerous to ask, so they stir themselves into a froth in Gon's head. Despite the sun in the cloudless sky, he feels dark.

After a while, though, Killua's reactions change. He checks behind them every few steps with quick glances, and jumps when Gon's boot crunches down on a patch of dried pine needles.

Gon isn't surprised when he says, voice low, "We're being watched. Followed, I think.”

Gon quashes a stab of bitterness at the senses he's lost but Killua still has. That's not quite fair, anyway. Gon may be an ineffective Hunter but he's still a good hunter, with all the instincts that entails. Even without Nen, he can feel the telltale prickle on the back of his neck.

“Is there any reason someone would attack us?”

Killua shakes his head briefly, and then pauses. “I don’t know. You’re pretty famous, maybe you still have enemies. Or I do. Or it's just a couple lowlifes looking to mug some kids.”

"Are you sure they mean us harm? Maybe they're just surprised to see us. Probably not too many travelers through here."

Killua's eyes narrow. Gon knows what he's thinking: Killua always finds it easiest to assume things are dangerous. He changes tactics.

"Do you want to go find them?"

"No," Killua says slowly. "Whether they attack us or we attack them, it'll be the same anyway. Let's just keep going. Maybe we'll get to another town and lose them."

"Sure."

Gon keeps walking, a little sputter of sparks igniting in his veins. It's been so long since he's been in anything approaching danger. He can feel his thoughts start to move faster, his spine straighten, his breath quicken. _You can't fight_ , he tells himself firmly. But maybe he can, if whoever's tracking them doesn't know Nen. Maybe it's just ordinary thieves? Gon hasn't fought in years, but his body is still quick and powerful. His muscles itch with impatience.

"Killua," he whispers. "Should we come up with a plan?"

Killua thinks this over, his gaze scanning the sides of the path. "Nah," he says finally. "The plan is just— _Gon, stay back!_ "

Gon's body responds before his brain fully hears, jumping back just as a huge mass roars past in front of him. When it slows he can see it's a large tiger, at least twice the size of any he's seen before, its haunches raised and its huge teeth shining out from its snarling mouth. Something is off about it—a shimmering at the edges, or the way its paws don't seem to be bearing its full weight.

"Made of Nen," Killua gets out before he sprints forward, punching the tiger in the nose with a crackle of lightning. The big cat falls back with a growl, eyeing Killua warily. Killua does something Gon's never seen—electrifies himself or something—surrounding himself with white lightning, his hair standing on end.

Another shape stalks out from the trees—a large man in shabby clothes and a big wiry mustache, muscles bulging. "Are you Killua Zoldyck?"

Killua snorts. "Guess so."

The man grins. "I heard bringing you in would get me in good with the Zoldyck family."

"Don't you think if they wanted me, they'd come get me themselves?"

"Maybe," the man says. "But they're up on a mountain, and I'm right here, so I think I'll try it myself."

The tiger lunges from behind just as the man leaps forward. Killua kicks him in the stomach and twists in the air, catching the tiger with his yo-yo. In an instant, he's back on the man again, knees on his shoulders and punching him hard in the face. He moves so fast Gon can barely track him with his eye, an arcing ball of light, like an avenging angel.

It's clear from the beginning that the man has no chance, Nen tiger or no. Killua is faster, stronger, and more experienced. But he has just enough tricks to draw the fight out, keeping Killua from defeating him outright.

Gon's hands clench and unclench at his sides. There's adrenaline coursing through him, pressure building inside his ribcage and behind his eyes, making his vision unsteady. This is it, a snapshot of what the last two years have been like—Gon forced into a constrained, compressed version of his life, pretending to be okay with sitting out.

Killua spins and lashes out, his movements fluid and feline. He drives an elbow into the tiger's windpipe, zaps lightning into the man's sternum, blocks a kick and ducks around it to land another blow.

Something catches Gon's eye, or maybe it's a different sense, one he doesn't have a name for. It cuts through the buzzing in his head. Killua keeps dropping his arm too low on his left side, creating an opening. Gon watches it, his senses heightened, and watches the man notice it, and then before he can think he's lunging forward, his mouth open to scream " _Killua!_ "

His body connects with Killua's, shoving him out of the way, and in the next second there's a dull impact against his side and he's flying.

"Gon, what the hell! Just let me handle it, idiot!"

Gon hits the ground, rolling over once before immediately pushing himself back up to his feet. The left side of his body doesn't seem to come all the way up with him—it's crumpled somehow, and he doubles over, clutching at it. "You weren't handling it," he yells out anyway, defiant.

More rough scuffling noises, and then the sound of a body dropping to the ground, too big of a _thwump_ to be Killua's. Gon tries to look at the damage, but his vision is clouded by black spots. He lets himself fall to his knees, and then regrets it when it jolts the crushed part of his side.

"Gon!" Killua's voice comes from yards away, but he's at Gon's side within an instant. He's not electrified anymore, and his face is even paler than usual. There's a big swipe of dust across one of his cheeks. "Dumbass, why did you do that? You can't even do Ten, a single blow could have killed you!"

"He would have hit you," Gon says. "You left an opening." The pain reaches a crescendo, and he closes his eyes until he can take in visual information again.

Killua looks like he's about to explode. "I _meant to!_ Do you think I couldn't handle that oaf? I was just trying to get him in closer so I could finish it! I told you to stay back!"

Gon opens his mouth to speak, but breathing in causes a shock of pain that silences him. He closes his mouth and punches the ground in frustration, barely even disturbing the dirt with his weak, auraless fists. He tries to speak again, but this time he chokes as his throat restricts. Hot tears slide down his face, splashing into the dirt.

"Gon." Killua's voice is thin, his eyes wild. He's terrified. Gon's poor bruised heart squeezes tight—it's the most care Killua's shown for him yet. "Okay, it's okay, we'll fix this—"

"It's not that," Gon chokes out. He wipes his arm across his eyes furiously, blinking hard. "It's just a cracked rib. I've cracked ribs before, I don't care about that."

"Well, it's different now! You won't recover as quickly—"

"Stop saying that!" Gon wants to scream, and having to stop himself just makes him more frustrated. "I don't care about getting hurt. I wanted to _fight_."

Killua sits back on his heels, his expression lost. He looks younger, more like the Killua that Gon remembers, his defenses stripped away. He speaks in a changed voice, softer. "Sorry, Gon. It must be hard."

"Shut up." Gon squeezes his eyes shut, and more stupid tears push their way out. "Shut up! Don't try to make me feel better! Why didn't you ever visit me?"

"What?"

"If you care then why didn't you visit me? Why didn't you ever answer the phone?" Gon doesn't want to be saying this, because he doesn't want to say anything that will make Killua pull back again. But it's spilling out of him like the tears did. "If you cared you would have been there! So don't pretend like you care if I get hurt now!"

Killua's eyes are wide, his lips parted in surprise. Gon watches him think, decide to speak, and then stop himself, struggling for words. Maybe Killua's silence in answer to all Gon's questions wasn't just poutiness, but difficulty finding what to say.

"I wanted to visit," he says finally. The skin between his eyebrows creases. "But it wouldn't have been good for me."

"Oh, and you think it was good for me? You think I liked spending all that time by myself?" Gon breaks off, panting, his breath too shallow to support yelling. He is bubbling over with anger at his useless ribcage.

"That's not what I mean!" Killua digs his fingertips into his knees, leaving dusty prints on his white pants.

"What do you mean, then?"

Killua makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. He runs a hand through his hair, already messed up from the fight, so it looks like a goosedown pillow erupted.

"Don't," Gon says. "Don't get mad. Because you keep getting mad at me when all I'm doing is trying to talk to you! You're supposed to be my best friend! I want to be with you—I want to _be with_ you, like I asked you about—and you won't even talk to me. You won't even look at me!"

Killua draws back like he's been slapped. His eyes cloud over, growing distant, and his face shuts down. He looks—Gon reaches back for his memories of Killua's reactions—badly shaken.

When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper.

"I didn't think you were serious."

"About what? Wanting to date you?"

Killua swallows visibly. "Yes."

Gon wants to shake him. He would, if he could lift his arms that high without disturbing his fracture.

"Why would I say that if I wasn't serious!"

Killua swallows again, his eyes meeting Gon's, steady and serious. "Don't. Don't joke. You really want to go on a date?"

"Yes," Gon says, "yes, I really like you but you're being a big jerk to me!" He was angling for an apology, and he hasn't heard one yet, and Killua is getting really distracted.

Killua jumps to his feet, his movements catlike as usual. "So you like me?"

"Yes!"

"So why didn't you say that years ago!" Killua is going the opposite way of apologizing. He's getting mad again, his shoulders hunching up and his hands clenching into fists.

"I told you I didn't think about it until now!"

"Well, then, you're stupid," Killua spits. He crosses his arms over his chest and glares down at Gon.

"That’s not fair! You said you hadn't thought of it either."

"I lied. I thought about it a lot. You just couldn't see it, or didn't want to, so I left, so I don't want to go out with you now. I want to be far away from you. You might think our friendship was fun, but it wasn't fun for me, it _sucked_."

The ground tilts under him. Gon catches himself on his hands.

When did Killua think about it? Gon casts his mind back to the time they spent together, half expecting to suddenly remember signals—a glance or a touch—that will explain everything. But his memories stay stubbornly the same. He remembers Killua at his side, the excitement of finding someone he connected with, the golden confidence of knowing they could do anything as a team. The thrill of pushing himself to Killua's level. He can't see any clues to Killua's feelings in all of that.

"How was I supposed to know about that? You never told me."

Killua makes another little agitated noise, his eyes wild. "You didn’t pay any attention." He breathes in through his nose, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. "This is stupid! I can't talk to you about this right now. We need to get out of here."

"Okay," Gon says. He starts to rise to his feet, ignoring a starburst of pain, but Killua's hand on his shoulder pushes him back down.

"Gon! I didn't mean to get up. Sit down, you're just going to make it worse."

"It's fine," Gon says. "A cracked rib heals on its own."

"Not if you're walking around all day, stupid. I'm just going to do what we should have done all along and call the Association. They can send a private ship." He pulls out a cellphone—not the beetle-shaped one Gon remembers from that market in Yorknew—and steps away to make the call.

Gon watches him talk, not listening to the words. He can deal with pain, but it's a red haze in his mind, limiting what else he can pay attention to. With all the color drained out of his face, Killua looks tired, much more so than a ten-minute fight would cause. His fingers drum nervously on his thigh.

After a few minutes, Killua shuts the phone and turns back to Gon.

"Are they sending an airship?"

"No, they're sending a guy who can teleport. Should be like twenty minutes. Practically every Hunter is already in the city and everyone loves you. I can't believe I didn't think to call earlier."

Gon thinks back to when they decided to go by foot. Killua had that trapped animal look on his face, like he couldn't think of anything worse than walking with Gon for a couple days. But he could have said no. He didn't have to come in the first place, no matter what he says about not trusting Gon to get there safely on his own. He keeps saying he doesn't want to see Gon or talk to him, but he's here, and Gon saw the look on his face when he saw Gon get hurt. It seems unlikely that Killua, who works for the Hunter Association, would have forgotten that they could arrange transport.

"Okay." He sits back in the dirt, gingerly crossing his legs in front of him, trying not to jar his torso too much. Killua hovers for a minute, awkwardly silent, before perching on a nearby rock.

Gon closes his eyes. The adrenaline is ebbing, leaving a wave of exhaustion to wash over him. The pain in his side is an insistent throb, yelling an alarm at him about information he already knows. He suddenly misses Mito, more than he ever did back in the day. Back then, with Killua, he never felt lonely.

"Gon," Killua says in a low voice. When Gon looks at him, he has his arms around his knees, staring at the ground. "Do you really want to be together? How would that even work? We have completely separate lives now."

Gon’s entire body aches. Thinking about this makes him too sad. "You said you don't want to, so why are you even asking?"

They don't speak again.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who left comments on the previous chapter, you have NO IDEA how happy y'all made me!! I hope this chapter provides a satisfying conclusion.

Killua was right about one thing: everyone is happy to help Gon. He didn't expect it, even though this ceremony is partially celebrating him. Gon knows from Leorio that he attained celebrity status after the fight with Neferpitou, and it makes sense that two years isn't enough time for people to forget that. But Gon has pushed this whole life so far behind him. It's disorienting to find that it was here waiting for him the whole time.

A Hunter with a transportation power takes him and Killua to the hotel, where they’re swarmed by Hunter Association officials. They ferry Gon to his room, away from Killua, and he lies in bed in a daze while a Hunter with a healing power painstakingly knits his rib back together. Then the people he knows start to trickle in to say hi.

The room they’ve given him is a massive suite, with a little sitting area with couches and a coffee table. It fills up with Hunters who stick around to chat.

Gon is surprised and delighted anew at every visitor. Goreinu and Tsezguerra! Knuckle and Shoot! Satotz! Even Wing shows up, which almost makes Gon cry again. Then Bisky enters and he does cry, just a little, while she ruffles his head and says, “I know, I’ve gotten even more beautiful!”

If they’re all making the effort to come see him, then why has he felt abandoned for the past two years? Was it all in his head? Did he exile himself?

Or is it that they’re willing to visit, but not engage? After all, what can Bisky do for him now?

Gon's friends sit around for hours, reminiscing about old fights. Wing tells Bisky how Gon and Killua coerced him into training them, and she laughs until she's wiping away tears. Morel passes around some kind of flask that no one will let Gon drink from, and the room takes on a party atmosphere, with everyone pulling out their most outlandish Hunter stories. Once again, the conversation steps around the question of what Gon's been doing. It's nice to be treated like he's still part of the gang, but it starts to wear on Gon that he's not ever going to have any more adventure stories of his own to tell. Eventually he kicks everybody out, pleading the need to sleep off his injury.

The absence of Killua is a big yawning emptiness inside him. He curls up around it in his bed, thinking of the panicked look on Killua's face when Gon told him how he felt. What did he do to make Killua so afraid?

He rolls onto his back and spreads his arms out wide on the cool sheets. He wants to see Killua. He wants to travel with him again. He wants to hear his name on Killua's lips. He wants to cup Killua's cool face in his hands and kiss his mouth in the summer breeze. He wants to press their bodies together and feel Killua breathe against his chest.

There's something that's bothering him about what Killua said before, that all the adventuring he and Gon did didn't mean anything to him. Because they were together for almost two years, and Killua fought like a demon, risking his life over and over. If he didn't care, then he must have been fighting for Gon's sake. It makes his stomach squirm. He was never fighting for Killua's.

Gon replays their fight in his head over and over, picking apart what Killua said and did, trying to strategize around Killua's feelings like he does with a fight. No matter how much Killua is trying to avoid him, he's going to see him at the commendation, and he has to be ready.

-

The next morning, they send Gon a lavish breakfast in his room, and then someone comes to bring him down to the hall where the commendation is to be presented. It's not the same building where Gon met Ging years ago, but that meeting echoes in his head.

He's ushered backstage into a group of Morel and Knov, Knuckle and Shoot, Ikalgo and Meleoron, Palm and—Gon's heart turns over—Killua.

Killua looks at him, startles, and then tries to look away fast enough to pretend he didn’t see him. Some of the old anger licks through Gon, so quickly it scares him. He doesn’t want to feel like that toward Killua. He clenches his fists and marches up to his friend.

“We should talk.”

He half expects Killua to ignore him. Instead, Killua shifts his weight back a little onto his heels, sighing and putting his hands behind his head.

“Yeah, I guess we should. After this?”

Gon nods. He lets his eyes travel down to assess Killua—looking overwhelmingly pretty just in a collared shirt, yellow hoodie and gray shorts—and looks up to see Killua doing the same to him. His mouth goes dry, but then Killua says, “Your injury is better.”

“Some Hunter helped stick it together. It’s still sore, but it won’t move while it’s healing.”

“Mm.”

Killua’s eyes slide away, followed by the rest of his body as he turns, returning to his conversation with Palm. Gon vaguely recalls that Killua was involved in rescuing Palm from the Ants, but he doesn’t know the details. It’s odd to see them tipping their heads together and laughing, especially now that Killua is only a few inches shorter than her. Again, Gon has the dizzying feeling that this world has continued in his absence.

Gon follows the rest of the group out on stage, and the ceremony starts.

This is what he came here for. This is what he wanted, some level of acknowledgement in front of everyone that he existed, no matter how brief his glory. But he’s distracted, disoriented by the bright lights and hyper aware of Killua’s every movement three feet away. It occurs to him for the first time that he has no idea what happened during the palace invasion. He spent the entire event facing off with Pitou until the fight that took him out of commission. The presenter reads out acts of courage performed by Knuckle, Shoot, Morel, and Gon’s guts twist in shame. Does he even deserve to be here? Was he really a part of the team, or did he just use them to get him somewhere he could let his rage explode?

He stares out into the audience, letting the lights burn his eyes until his vision distorts. When they read out his name, highlighting his heroic sacrifice of health and abilities to kill Pitou, the crowd roars, and Gon feels a little sick. He can’t remember the fight that clearly, certainly not the moment of decision that took away his Nen. Fourteen was too young to understand the emptiness that would follow, how many years were left in a life he’s now forced to navigate in this reduced state.

After the ceremony, Killua beckons him with a little head movement. Gon follows him back to his room, a suite similar to Gon’s own, and they settle on opposite couches. Gon sits with his back straight, his feet flat on the floor and his hands resting on his knees. Killua pulls one knee up, lounging back on the cushions.

"Okay, let’s talk.” He doesn't look happy about it. Gon at least has some inkling now that Killua's reticence to talk to him is about something more than Gon being annoying.

"I want to clarify something," Gon says, his voice steady despite the rapid hammering of his pulse. "I don't just like you. I'm in love with you."

Killua's eyes fly wide open. He stares at Gon for a moment, his facial muscles struggling to know what to do. Gon has never seen Killua look as lost in the face of danger as he does right now, his body poised in fight-or-flight.

“What—” Killua starts, and then gulps down the rest of the words. He blinks hard, and Gon manages to tear his eyes away the second Killua’s face starts to crumple. He stares at the ceiling, politely pretending he didn’t notice. In his peripheral vision he sees Killua turn away, hiding his face behind his knee. Gon concentrates on counting the ceiling fan blades. Killua wipes his hoodie sleeve across his face, and when Gon finally looks back, Killua is looking at him, pink-eyed but composed.

When he speaks, his voice is low.

"Don't say that if you don't mean it."

"I do mean it."

Killua's eyebrows tilt slightly and his mouth tightens around the corners, making his face look pained. "Why are you telling me this? What do you want me to do about it?"

Gon hesitates. In his mind, this went a lot differently. Yesterday was confusing, and he was in a lot of pain, but he's pretty sure Killua confessed feelings for him. When you tell someone you return their feelings, they're not supposed to start crying and get mad.

"You said I didn't pay attention," he says. "And that I didn't notice. And you're right, I didn't. I think there was a lot that you felt that I didn't know about. So I'd like you to tell me, please."

"Tell you what?"

Gon's fingers tighten on his kneecaps. "What I didn't notice. I'm listening."

Killua stares at him. He’s not following Gon’s plan at all. “You’re trying to apologize to me by asking me to tell you about how much I liked you?”

“Well,” Gon says. It just sounds narcissistic when he puts it that way. “I thought you might want to.”

Killua ducks his head, letting his bangs partially cover his eyes. “I don’t.”

“Why not?”

"Too embarrassing," Killua mumbles.

Gon remembers Killua saying that before, whenever he would start talking about how great Killua was or how important their friendship was. It was always embarrassing for Killua, never for Gon. He's pretty sure it's only embarrassing if you make it that way.

"Please," he says. “I can’t make things better if I don’t even know what I did.”

Killua shakes his head. "It's hard."

"I know."

Killua chews on his bottom lip, watching his own fingers trace circles on the couch cushions.

"You might never see me again," Gon offers.

"I'll tell you, just let me think."

"Fine."

"Okay."

Gon's heart is pounding out of his chest, but he can wait as long as it takes. It's like hunting, staying perfectly still until a frightened hare relaxes and tentatively steps in your direction.

"It's like," Killua says. "Okay. Remember the dodgeball game?"

Gon hesitates. "On Greed Island?" He remembers that as one of their only escapades that was purely fun—no one died, no one was playing for any stakes higher than a card in a video game. And best of all, he and Killua got to work together, matching their limitless determination to make each other stronger.

"Yeah." Killua's voice is calm, but Gon can tell he's agitated from the fidgeting of his fingers, and the acrid note of sweat he’s picking up with his canine sense of smell. "Remember it messed up my hands? But I did it because you needed me to. And we won. I think, after that... I think I got mixed up about that. Like I thought that we won because I let myself get hurt. And that me getting hurt was helping you. Maybe even the more hurt I got, the more it was helping you. And I wanted to help you because you were so messed up about Kite."

He breaks off. Gon tries to think back to East Gorteau, but his memories are too jumbled by the intensity of his emotions at the time and the big blaring beacon of Neferpitou. He remembers snapping at Killua, but he apologized, didn't he?

"I wanted to be your friend so much," Killua says. "So I was trying to earn it. And it just went too far, and I was hurting all the time, and you didn't care, and I couldn't do it anymore. And the longer we've been apart, I've just thought... why did I do that? What was so special about you that I went crazy like that? Sorry."

"It's okay."

"So I don't know, Gon. I think it's too late. I don't..." He stops and breathes before continuing, one full inhale, one full exhale. "I do feel it. I was—" His face pinkens, and he frowns his way through it, like he's trying to intimidate it into stopping. "I was—in love with you. I just can't go back to that. Do you know I almost died? What if I'd died, and Alluka had stayed locked up by my family forever?"

Gon's brain is full of holes. He runs the images of East Gorteau back desperately. "When did you almost die?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Hey!" Gon sits up a little straighter. "Stop that! You can't get mad at me for not paying attention and then push me off when I’m trying. I didn't know that you felt that way, okay? If I'd known, of course I would have cared!"

"It doesn't even matter," Killua says. He meets Gon's eyes now, his face dark. "It's not about you. It's about how I felt. It's not good for me to be around you, Gon. I just... can't be smart around you."

Gon wants to yell back, _Well I can't be smart at all!_ But he's always blurting things out. He's never really stopped to think about how anything he said would make Killua feel. Even when he said nice things, about Killua being his friend, it was never to make Killua feel good. Just his mouth opening and saying whatever words came into his brain.

Now that he thinks about it, the last time he did something specifically for Killua was probably rescuing him from the Zoldycks after the exam.

It’s starting to take shape why Killua doesn’t want to remember their past adventures.

“You have to let me try to change your mind,” he says, leaning forward with urgency. “Maybe I’ve been a bad friend. But I could be a good boyfriend. I can show you.”

Killua’s face draws even more closed. “Don’t make me into one of your stupid goals. I’m not some new Nen move.”

“That’s not fair.” The more Killua pulls away, the more Gon wants to get closer, but trying to force it will just make it worse. It sends a nervous energy buzzing through Gon’s fingers and toes. “I’m trying to be better.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“Well, I want to!” Oops. Gon takes a deep breath, trying to push all the agitation out of his body. It works, kind of. His muscles relax the slightest bit. “Sorry. You’re right, I don’t want you to feel like... like I’m treating you like that.”

Killua grunts. He’s gazing at the window, not like before when he was avoiding eye contact, but like he’s done with this conversation. Every part of Gon is screaming with the need to pull Killua’s attention back.

“Okay, forget dating. Why don’t you just let me take you out as an apology? Not a date. Just let me buy you dinner.”

Killua’s gaze slides back over. “Tonight?”

“Yeah! Do you have plans?”

“Nah.”

“So will you hang out with me?”

Gon watches Killua’s brow furrow as he processes this. _Please please please_. He’s sure there is a part of Killua that wants to leave now and never see him again, but he’s equally sure there’s a part that doesn’t—if only for nostalgia—the part that agreed to take Gon on an airship to Swaldani and take him by foot if necessary. Maybe Killua’s right, and doing these things was a bad idea, but this is the last chance Gon has to make it a good one.

Finally, Killua lifts his eyes to the ceiling. “Yeah, okay.”

“You will??”

“I said yeah.”

Gon jumps up, his blood stirring awake. “Great! You won’t regret it!”

“Don’t make this a big deal, it’s just dinner.”

“Right. Thank you, Killua! I’ll see you later!!”

Killua’s voice says, “Wait, where are you going?” but Gon is already jogging out of the room. He’s not just going to bring Killua to the crepe stand down the street. This requires serious prep.

-

In the end, it takes Gon much longer than expected to decide where to take Killua. What was easy to plan for Palm—an intimate picnic, a dazzling spectacle—seems insipid when he imagines Killua’s reaction. He’s not easily impressed. Gon is starting to believe it’s true that he never paid Killua enough attention, because he can’t think of anything that Killua would get excited about. He never cared much about food, except for snacks and chocolate, and he seemed bored for most of the time they weren’t training or fighting. The only thing Gon might have said confidently that Killua liked was Gon himself, and now he’s not even sure of that anymore.

It takes harder thinking than he’s done for years, but he finally comes up with a plan, and dashes around to set everything up in time to meet Killua in the hotel lobby.

Killua has changed clothes, a detail that does something funny to Gon’s heart, even though he really did mean it that this isn’t a date. Killua still dressed up, sort of, in a navy sweater and skinny black jeans. He has a chocolate lollipop in his mouth and both hands in his pockets.

“Where are we going?” His voice is muffled. He moves the lollipop from one side to the other with his tongue.

“Nowhere,” Gon says proudly.

Killua takes the lollipop from his mouth with a _pop_. “I thought you were really excited about this.”

“I got us some food to eat here! The hotel has some great chefs. They’re going to send up a bunch of fancy courses!”

“Send up to where? Your room?”

“Nope.” Gon is almost vibrating with excitement, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “Come on, let’s go!”

He grabs Killua’s hand, meaning to drag him to the elevator, but drops it immediately, his stomach lurching. It's too intense. He wants to do that more slowly, savoring the feeling of Killua's cool skin. He grabs the sleeve of Killua’s sweater instead, which Killua yanks out of his grasp after a few steps, trailing after Gon on his own.

Gon takes Killua up to the twelfth floor. After he got his idea, he ran down to talk to the hotel staff about where might be a good place to hang out—other than his room, which feels weirdly intimate. They allocated him a small meeting room intended for business conferences, complete with a side table for a buffet. The Hunter Association must be paying the hotel enough to afford some special consideration for their star guest. On Gon’s request, they’ve cleared out the big table and chairs in the room, but left the projector screen used for presentations.

"Gon..." Killua says, looking around. He's baffled, which is at least better than pissed off.

Gon shuts the door behind them and takes a deep breath.

"I thought really hard about how to show you a good time," he says. "I don't think you ever cared about going anywhere fancy or popular. So I was thinking about what times we had together that were actually fun. And I think the best memory I have is that time we were stuck in that room for fifty hours. During the Hunter Exam. Remember?"

Killua's face barely changes expression, but Gon can see his mouth twist slightly. Like he's amused but trying not to be.

"Gon, that was a punishment."

"I know! I was so mad about it, too, after you and I both won our contests. But that was when we got to know each other! You taught me to skateboard and I taught you to use a fishing rod and it was the most fun I'd ever had with a kid my age. And I think you had fun too, because we were friends after that."

Killua ducks his head, but Gon can hear a little snort of laughter escape him. "So are we gonna be locked up here for fifty hours?"

"Nope. I just thought we could hang out, eat some food and play the new Monster Thief game."

Killua's head snaps up, his eyes wide. It's very satisfying. Gon's whole body floods with pride.

"How do you have that?? That's not out for another three months."

"Like you said, every Hunter is in this city right now. A Tech Hunter who remembered me from the elections did me a favor."

Gon was worried that maybe Killua didn't like games anymore, but his eyes are shining.

"Cool, right?"

Killua struggles to train his face into apathy. "It's okay, I guess."

Gon beams. "And I got you this!" He ducks underneath the snack table and pulls out a big box of chocolate robots.

The little half-smile on Killua's face grows even more. "I can buy those for myself, Gon. Whenever I want." But he nudges the box a little closer to himself with his foot.

They flop down on the floor to play. The game is pretty confusing to Gon, but Killua sets it up instantly, creating his character before Gon has even figured out which buttons are which. He complains loudly when Gon takes a long time to create his, insisting that it doesn't matter. "You're just going to lose anyway."

"If it doesn't matter, then just let me do it!"

"But you're taking _forever._ "

They finally get it started, and play for about five minutes before the door opens and the hotel staff brings in the first round of food. Gon falls on it hungrily, and is gratified to see Killua doing the same, loading up his plate and shoving food into his mouth with obvious satisfaction. Killua probably wouldn’t admit it, but Gon knows he planned a good not-date.

For all Killua’s posturing about winning, the game isn’t even one where they’re playing against each other. Instead they’re supposed to team up to steal treasures from a big underground cavern full of monsters. Gon, whose only video game experience is Greed Island, is not good at it. His little avatar keeps running into walls and slipping on swamp monster slime while Killua is jumping from ledge to ledge, doing little somersaults in the air to pick up treasure as he goes.

It doesn’t matter. Killua is laughing, elbowing Gon out of the way to get full use of his controller, chomping on chocolate robots. Some part of Gon that hasn’t relaxed since the World Tree is finally at ease. He made Killua come back.

They play for hours, with the occasional food intermission, until Gon notices his eyes crossing a little as he tries to focus on the screen.

“Killua, let’s take a break.”

“What? No way.”

“Killuaaaa.” Gon shoves him with a shoulder. “I’m getting a headache.”

“Fine.” Killua pauses the game (how? Gon didn’t know you could do that) and sets his controller down, reaching up into the air to stretch his arms. Gon averts his eyes from Killua’s lithe body, feeling warm. “You’re terrible at this, anyway.”

It’s true, but Gon still bristles. “It’s just a game. If we were fighting monsters in real life, it’d be a different story.”

Killua lets out a snort of laughter. “Yeah, right.” He pushes himself to his feet, his bones cracking unpleasantly after so much sitting. “Do you want another soda?”

Gon doesn’t move.

“Gon?”

Killua probably didn’t mean to say it. But he did. Gon’s heart pounds, a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

“You don’t think I can fight?”

Killua hesitates. “What?”

Gon grips the controller harder. “Do you think I’m done fighting? That I’m useless now?”

“Gon. What are you talking about?”

“You laughed.”

There’s a horrible pause, one that makes Gon feel hideously exposed. He can feel Killua looking at him, trying to figure this situation out.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Gon knows that. He does. But he’s tired, and his head is really starting to hurt, and the flames of anger are licking at his feet.

“You wouldn’t let me fight before. When that guy attacked you.”

Killua looks caught, a kitten shocked by a spritz of water. “I...”

This is an unfair situation to put Killua in. What can he say? Gon doesn’t have Nen. He couldn’t have done anything. He could easily have died trying. Killua’s responsibility, his purpose on this trip, is to handle threats that Gon can’t. But Gon can’t stop himself.

He stands slowly, turning to face Killua.

“Use Zetsu.”

“Huh?”

“Zetsu. Suppress your Nen. Fight me and we’ll see.”

Killua stumbles backwards a step. “No, Gon, I don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?” Because he’s afraid he’ll win, and have to feel bad for Gon. Gon knows that’s why, and he also knows that Killua probably will win, that he’s much stronger than Gon at this point. But he doesn’t care.

Killua looks exasperated. “Because I don’t want to fight you.”

“I want you to.”

“Well, you don’t get everything you want.”

This is what Gon remembers the most from East Gorteau: rage. It’s always been his companion, there to boost his power into the inhuman range, making people go from “he’s just a kid” to “let’s get him in a room with Neferpitou.” After he went back home, it nearly swallowed him, with no one to turn it on but himself. After all, he made the decision; he ruined his own life. The anger was a noose, strangling him until he couldn’t breathe.

It’s been two years. He’s learned some things. He closes his eyes, breathing through his nose until the red starts to clear. Sometimes when he does this, he imagines Killua’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. This time he thinks of Mito.

He opens his eyes. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Gon...”

Through this whole trip, the only time Gon has seen Killua’s face unguarded is when he got hurt. But now Killua is gazing at him, forehead creased and eyes endlessly sad.

He’s stunning. Gon feels helpless.

Killua shoves his hands in his pockets. “I probably do owe you an apology.”

Gon blinks.

“For cutting you off. That must have really sucked. You didn’t deserve that. I guess I was just thinking of myself. I honestly didn’t think you’d miss me.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you didn’t care. You didn’t even need me during the palace fight. You left me behind long before I left you.”

There has to be some way to argue against this. Killua’s perception has to be false. But... Gon can’t remember what Killua did during the palace invasion, not after he left Gon in the room with Pitou. He can’t remember talking to Killua very much at all after his fight with Knuckle.

“And you were an incredible Hunter,” Killua says. “It must suck to lose that. I’m really sorry. But you should be proud. No one could have done what you did to Pitou, maybe not even Netero. I could never have done it.”

Gon shuts his eyes again. Sometimes he can still feel the cracking of Pitou’s skull under his fist. It didn’t feel good, not the broken mess he made of Pitou’s body, not the amount of power he poured into his own. He could feel it tearing him apart, stretching his cells beyond their capacity. It felt natural then, the outward reflection of what the grief was doing to his heart.

“I shouldn’t have done it.”

“We have no way to know what Pitou would have done once the king died. That thing was too smart to go back to the palace and get poisoned. You might have saved thousands.”

Remembering the excess of that fight, the glut of power and the freak expansion of his body, makes him feel weak and small now. The fogginess of his memories seems to confirm that whatever killed Pitou wasn’t fully him. Not the same person who’s standing here now, a bony teenager who’s stayed up too late playing video games.

He opens his eyes. Killua’s anxious form appears in front of him. He doesn’t want to repeat his mistakes, focusing on his issues when Killua is right here trying to connect with him.

“You were wrong,” he says quietly. “I missed you.”

Killua shakes his head a fraction. “You missed your life. Nen. I get it.”

“No.” How can he make Killua understand? Killua is so smart and perceptive and yet so wrong about this. “I missed you. There’s no one like you in the world, Killua. I told you how I feel.”

He expects Killua to draw back again, to take back the tiny amount of slack he’s given. Instead Killua just stares at him, his face grave.

“I mean it.”

“Gon...”

“Killua.” He feels stupid with how close they are, tempted to push the boundaries even though he told himself he wouldn’t. “I want to kiss you.”

Killua doesn’t step back, doesn’t tense up. The only movement is his eyes, which grow wide and fearful.

“No.”

It’s what Gon expected. But...

“It’s not fair,” he says. “What are you scared of? That you’ll like it too much, and like me too much? But I already like you too much. I’m there.”

Killua inhales a shaky breath.

“You said you loved me,” he says, his voice barely audible.

“Yes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I can't trust you because I don't know what that means to you.”

Gon gazes at him, taking in his fluffy hair, his narrow limbs, his slim body. What he means is that Killua is the best person in the whole world—but that doesn't really say anything. Killua tried so hard to express his feelings, and he deserves the same from Gon.

"You make me feel like myself," he says slowly. "You make me feel like... the person I was when I met you." A happy person. "Like when Morel told me to attack him, and I almost killed him, and you brought me back. When I almost killed Pitou too soon, you brought me back. When I almost died" —because of his own bad choices, his own uncontrollable emotions— "you came and found me and you saved me."

He wanted Killua's face to clear, but instead it’s growing darker. Gon is starting to think he's not good at reading Killua's feelings.

"So you like me because I fix your messes? That just proves my point! Everything you just said is something I do for you, not something about me."

"That's not what I meant!"

Killua crosses his arms over his chest. "You want me to date you but you can't even tell me one thing you like about me."

Gon flusters, his foot coming down on air where he thought there was ground. "That's not because I don't like you, it's because I'm bad at talking!"

"Whatever, Gon." Killua snorts. "I should just go to sleep."

"No—" _Please_. Killua walked away from him once, and Gon knows it’ll happen again in a few days, but he can’t take it right now. "I'm messing everything up."

"Yeah, kind of."

Gon makes a frustrated noise, almost a growl. "I do like you. You're smart and cool and strong and fun to talk to. I like the way you look so much, I can hardly look at you. I like your hair and your clothes and I like the way you sound when you get mad. I like hearing you say my name. I like the way you move and the faces you make. You're good at all the things I'm bad at, so I'm better with you. That's all I was trying to say. You don't have to take care of me, I've survived the last few years without you. I just like it better when you're here. You're a good person, Killua, and I'm lucky you were ever friends with me at all."

Killua is quiet. Gon tries to read his face, desperate, but it's entirely passive, his eyes cast slightly downward. The silence is so absolute, Gon can hear Killua's steady breathing, the rise and fall of his chest the only movement.

Killua's lips move, but Gon can't hear him.

"What?"

Killua sighs, annoyed, unfairly in Gon's opinion since it's his fault for being too quiet.

"Thank you."

It stabs right through Gon’s chest. "Oh."

"Sorry, Gon, I'm—" Killua rubs his hands over his face. "I'm getting mad over stuff from years ago. It's not really your fault."

"It's okay." Gon takes a deep breath. "Do you... I mean... Is there any part of you that still likes me? Even after I messed up so many times?"

Killua makes a small noise in the bridge of his nose. Gon can't determine what it means, and he suspects Killua doesn't know either.

"That's not the point. I don't want to be your boyfriend anyway."

Gon is at the edge of a precipice, pushing for one more millimeter of space before he falls. "It matters to me."

Killua looks aggrieved. He crosses his arms again, hugging the sides of his ribcage.

"If I could stop liking you I would have done it a long time ago, okay?"

Warmth spreads through Gon’s body, starting in his stomach and radiating outward, like a swallow of hot soup.

"But I don't get it," Killua continues. "Why are you just feeling this way now? Why not before?"

Gon's eyes widen. "I did feel it before! I just didn't know what those feelings meant." Ever since he met Killua, he’s wanted to be near him more than anything else. It’s just that he was a dumb kid. And he’s only a slightly less dumb, slightly less kid now.

Killua frowns, clearly skeptical. Gon presses forward.

"Killua. Did it ever occur to you that I stopped paying attention to you in East Gorteau _because_ I care about you? There was too much going on, I couldn't handle it all. I needed to believe that you were going to be okay even if I couldn't put energy into protecting you. If I had been thinking about what I'd do if you died, I would have completely snapped."

He completely snapped anyway, but he's hoping Killua won't bring that up.

Killua's voice is soft and serious. "It still wasn't fair."

"I know. I'm sorry. I was just a kid. I didn't handle it well."

Killua nods, lost in thought.

It’s not enough. What he's been able to express is so inadequate compared to what he feels. It hurts that Killua could ever think it was even possible for Gon not to love him. This pale teen in a blue sweater is where Gon's life begins and ends.

Killua sets his shoulders, seeming to come to some resolution.

"You know what you said before," he says. His cheekbones flush a delicate rose. "What you said you wanted to do."

"Kiss you?"

The flush deepens to brick.

"Yeah." Killua slouches, looks up, feigning—Gon's known him long enough to be sure it's feigning—indifference. "You can. I guess. If you want."

Gon's stomach drops out of his body. Killua is all cozy textures—soft hair, soft sweater—set off by the knife-sharp angle of his defensive shoulderblades. Gon wants to take him in his arms and smooth the fear away.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. So don't ask me again. Just do it, okay?"

Gon takes a step forward. Electricity races up his spine, arcing between vertebrae. Like he's about to go into battle.

He reaches a hand out, intending to touch Killua's hip, but Killua is still awkwardly half-angled away, so he ends up gripping his elbow. He squeezes it. Killua inhales sharply. Gon steps forward again and slides his other hand against the small of Killua's back, his fingers light, but he can still feel Killua react, just barely leaning into his touch. His arm encircles Killua's warm body.

He tilts his chin up, examining Killua's features. Killua blanches, embarrassed, but he holds still and lets Gon take in his face. The flourish of his eyelashes, the shape of his nose, the nearness of his lips. It's the most beautiful thing Gon has ever seen.

Killua swallows. "Are you going to kiss me or are you just going to be weird?"

"Why don't you kiss me?"

Killua goes even redder. "I asked you to."

"Then I'm gonna be weird." He slides his hand up Killua's back, watching Killua struggle to keep his face from showing his reaction. He’s overwhelmed with the pleasure of being close to Killua, getting to soak in the details of his form. He follows another impulse without thinking, dipping his hand back down and slipping it under Killua's sweater, splaying his fingers flat against the thin layer of fabric separating their skin. Killua makes a choked noise.

"Gon."

"Hm?" Gon drops Killua's elbow to tangle his other hand in Killua's hair, soft as spidersilk. Killua's chest jerks.

"Gon, come on." Killua straightens his posture, his muscles growing rigid under Gon's fingertips. He grips Gon's hips firmly, pulls him forward, leans down and turns his head. Gon gets it, his heartbeat spiking violently just before Killua presses their lips together.

Gon's eyes fall closed, light bursting inside him. Every little sensory detail sends new shocks through his system: Killua's breath against his mouth, Killua's chest moving against his. He pulls back a fraction just so he can lean in and kiss Killua again, as gently as possible. Killua's eyelashes flutter against the curve of Gon's cheek, right near his temple.

It’s impossible that this is their first kiss. Gon has an innate awareness of Killua's body, so tuned in after years of training together, so in sync he can almost feel Killua's aura envelope him. He senses every twitch of Killua's muscles, adjusts to every minute shift when Killua angles his head, their mouths fitting together so perfectly it feels like a curse. When they met, their personalities fell into comfortable compatibility, Gon's peaks matching Killua's valleys. This is no different. This was meant to happen, this is the right path for their friendship to follow. It's unbelievable that it took so long.

Gon is drowsy, hazy, intoxicated. He wants to kiss Killua's mouth forever, feeling Killua's solid weight pressing against him, Killua's hands an anchoring presence on his hips.

Killua draws back, and Gon is about to protest when he snakes his arms around Gon's waist and buries his face in the joint of Gon's neck. He heaves a deep, shuddering breath, gripping Gon with all his considerable strength, like he's afraid to let Gon put a millimeter of space between them. Gon rubs circles into his lower back, breathing in the woody scent of Killua's hair. It smells like Killua. It's been years. He'd forgotten.

They stay like that for a long time, Killua breathing damply into Gon's shirt. Finally, he loosens his grip and straightens. Gon cracks his neck, shakes out his arms, presses a hand to his healing rib with a tiny wince.

Killua startles. "Oh, crap! I forgot!"

"It's okay." How many doors of the Testing Gate would Killua be up to by now? Whatever. Gon would rather be crushed to death in his best friend's arms than have Killua avoid him ever again.

He looks up at Killua, the few inches’ difference more notable when they're standing this close. Killua smiles weakly back, his happiness fragile. At any second, this could fall apart.

"I wanna do that again," Gon says.

Killua nods slowly.

Gon reaches up, loops his arms around Killua's neck, and pulls him back in.

-

They kiss until they get tired of holding each other up. Then they sit on the floor, Killua cross-legged with his back to the wall, and Gon kneels over him and kisses him until they're both falling asleep.

"We should go to my room," Gon murmurs, but Killua shakes his head and says, "Let's just stay here." So they fall to the floor, eyes closing, and lazily kiss with their heads tipped close together until they fall asleep on the hotel carpet.

Gon wakes up before the sun rises, chilly without a blanket. He blinks awake, too disoriented to understand why he's on the floor in a dark room, before it comes back to him with a jolt. Awe stirs deep within him, and he presses his hands to his face, overwhelmed with the memory of warming himself against Killua's chest.

Then he peeks through his fingers, his blood running cold.

Killua's gone.

Probably just back to his room. It's a little weird to sleep on the floor, although it's no less comfortable than sleeping on the ground outside. A little more claustrophobic when Gon can't see the sky. He drags himself to his feet, and blearily makes his way into the elevator and back to his own hotel room, where he dives under the comforter and falls asleep again.

The next time he wakes up, there is lemon-yellow light seeping through the curtains. He rolls over, and then realizes with a start what woke him: the feeling of being watched.

Knuckle Bine is standing over his bed with a huge, face-splitting grin, hands on his hips. “Gon! We’re going on a trip!”

Poisonous dread seeps through Gon’s insides. He pushes himself to a sitting position, the blanket falling off him. “What do you mean?”

Knuckle points straight at Gon’s face. “I’m going to take you back to your house!”

So Killua passed him off to someone else. Gon isn’t surprised, but it hurts more than he expected, a knife twisted deep in his guts. Tears start to fall before he can speak.

“Where’s Killua?”

“Gon! Shit! Are you okay?”

Gon nods impatiently, wiping his face on the comforter. “Did he leave?”

“He said he had to get going on his Association mission right away. Did you get hurt??”

“No,” Gon says. He hugs his knees and bursts into a wave of sobs.

“Gon!!” Knuckle waffles, his hands making uncertain motions in the air, and settles for reaching out and patting Gon’s hair. “What can I do? How can I help?”

Killua never answered if they would ever see each other again. Gon begged one night out of him. At no point did Killua lead Gon to believe there would be anything more, so Gon hurting now isn’t Killua’s fault. He never thought they would be boyfriends after this, but he at least thought they had a couple more days.

This is Mito’s worst case scenario. He is going to come back damaged, physically and emotionally.

“I’m sorry,” Gon says. He hesitates, then figures the hotel is going to wash the sheets anyway, and blows his nose into them. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, Knuckle-san. I would love for you to accompany me.”

Knuckle’s face is frozen in panic. “Did something happen?”

Gon wouldn’t mind telling him, but Killua is a much more private person than he is. “It’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.” He pulls his shirt up over his face to dry his eyes. When he re-emerges, Knuckle is looking off to the side, probably to give Gon some privacy. His face is still twisted in anguish.

"It's okay!" Gon says. He throws the sheets off and jumps out of bed. "When's the airship leaving? We can catch up on the trip!"

Knuckle clears his throat. "You know—Gon—you can always talk to me—"

"Got it." Gon sticks his tongue out and flashes him a peace sign. Knuckle's face wavers between about fifteen different emotions, before he yells, "Aw, dammit!" and throws his arms around Gon. He picks Gon off the ground, swinging him a little, Gon's toes brushing the carpet. "I love ya, kid."

"Thanks, Knuckle-san."

Knuckle deposits him back on the floor. "Get your stuff together and meet me downstairs?"

Gon nods.

He's going to be okay. He meant it when he told Killua he didn't need to be taken care of. The last few years haven't been easy, but if they've taught him anything, it's that he can survive being unhappy. But knowing that doesn't stop him from being sad.

He missed Killua before, but it was like missing someone he'd met in a dream. His life had diverged from Killua's so sharply, it didn't seem strange to continue without him. Now the absence is fresh, and worse, he knows now what he might have had. It reminds him of the fight with Genthru: the sickening feeling of wind blowing against the place where his arm had been moments before.

What kind of mission is Killua going on, anyway? He never said, and Gon never asked. Gon hopes, for Killua's sake, that he can get through it quickly and be reunited with his sister as soon as possible.

He doesn't have many things to gather. It doesn't take long for him to get ready, but he lingers anyway, his hand on the doorknob. Once he leaves this world, there's no guarantee that he'll ever come back.

Whatever. He'll live. He slips out the door, not bothering to listen for the sound of it closing behind him.

-

The journey back to Whale Island is uneventful. Gon almost wishes for another emergency landing to extend his trip, but the airship takes him faithfully back to the boat, which carries him peacefully back to the island. Mito gives him a big hug, tears in her eyes, and Gon steps on Knuckle's foot when he starts to tell her to be careful with Gon's ribs. (He tells her anyway, after Knuckle leaves. It doesn't feel right to lie to Mito.)

He’s only been gone a few days. Still, it’s hard to fit himself into the shape of the hole he left here. No one in Swaldani treated him like his life was over. It makes it hard to remember that it is.

There’s nothing to do but go back to helping Mito and exploring the island. It gives him a lot of time to think.

His mind is full of memories of kissing Killua. Memories from before then, too—little moments between him and Killua over the years that he pulls out and re-examines now with his new understanding. He hoards them like silver coins.

It only hurts when he lets it hurt. Most often, he muscles it down. He got more than he ever expected from Killua, and he's learned that if he lets himself think too hard about everything he's lost, it'll swallow up his whole life. He can't have Nen, or adventures, or his friends, and he can't have Killua. He's used to it.

Still, it’s hard to resurface from the memories.

It’s three months past the ceremony when there's a knock at the door to their house. Gon is in the kitchen, scrubbing a scorch mark of his own doing out of the bottom of Mito's best stockpot, so she goes to answer it.

"Gon!” Mito calls back. “It's for you!"

Gon drops the pot. He doesn’t have any friends on the island.

He runs to the hall, the world going fuzzy around the edges. There, lounging on their threshold and chatting with Mito, is Killua.

“KILLUA!” Gon shrieks. He bounds to the door so fast he has to slap his palm on the doorframe to bring himself to a stop. “What are you doing here!!”

“Hey, Gon.”

Killua moves aside, and Gon can see what’s behind him: a young girl, her black hair in braids.

“AND ALLUKA!” Gon grabs both her hands, giddy with excitement. “It’s so good to see you again!”

She giggles. “Hi, Gon!”

Gon laughs in return, joy fountaining up inside him. He whips his face back to Killua. “So you’re done with your Hunter assignment?”

“Yeah.” Killua won’t make eye contact, uncomfortable as always with Gon’s enthusiasm over him. Too bad. He'll have to live with it, because Gon can’t stop smiling. Killua’s lucky Gon didn’t jump on top of him like an untrained puppy.

“You came to visit!”

Killua flushes. “It’s not a big deal.”

It is an enormous deal, maybe the biggest of all time, but Gon understands that Killua needs to pretend it isn’t. He hopes Mito knows to do the same.

“Well, you’re welcome to stay here, of course!” Mito says. She puts her hands on her hips. “Although I do wish you would have called. I would have washed the bedsheets.”

“It’s okay,” Killua says. “You can wash them for Alluka, I’ll just sleep outside.”

“You will not! I’ll not be that bad of a hostess!”

Killua looks nonplussed. “I really don’t mind.”

Gon lets Mito fuss at him. He turns back to Alluka, dropping his voice. “Did Killua miss me?”

She shrugs. That’s not quite what Gon had hoped for.

“Gon, what are you saying to my sister?”

“I was asking if you missed me,” Gon says, straightening up. "Did you?"

“Gon,” Mito cuts in. “Why don’t you show your friends in, and then come help me get the house set up?”

“Yes, Mito-san!”

Gon leaves Killua and Alluka sitting at the table, and then races after Mito, helping her set up extra cots in both of their bedrooms. The faster this is done, the faster he can see Killua again, so he does whatever Mito tells him at top speed. It leads to a lot of Mito doing things over again, which takes even more time. But Gon can’t slow down. He wants to run fifty miles, or else he’s going to vibrate out of his skin.

Finally, Mito says they’re done and tells him to go offer their guests some tea. Gon leaps down the stairs five at a time—if he still had Nen he probably wouldn’t bother with any of them.

For a blood-curdling few moments he worries that Killua won’t be where Gon left him, but he’s still sitting awkwardly in Gon’s dining room. He looks like he’s in a hospital waiting room, scared to touch any surfaces in case they’re contaminated with normal family germs.

“Do you want some tea?” Gon says in a rush, his lungs still trying to catch up with his body.

“Um. Do you think we could go for a walk or something?”

Gon is eating up the sight of him, his eyes darting from Killua’s face, to his pale hands folded in his lap, to the tense position of his legs. It feels like a dangerous luxury to get to look at Killua as much as he wants.

“Yeah!” he says. “Alluka? Do I have your permission to take your brother away for a bit?”

She twists the end of her braid around her finger. “As long as you bring him back.”

Gon takes Killua on a path straight down the hill from the house, to a part of the coastline hidden from the docks. They sit on one of the big rock formations jutting out into the water, Killua with his legs crossed and Gon dangling his bare feet over the water, wriggling his toes in the mist from the waves.

“Thank you for coming,” Gon says.

“I needed to talk to you. Not over the phone.”

“Yeah?”

There’s something extra beautiful about Killua by the ocean. He fits right into the landscape, white clouds against the blue sky, white froth on the waves.

“Sorry I took off without saying goodbye.”

Gon waits. There’s no way Killua came all the way here just to apologize. He doesn’t really want this apology, anyway. Killua leaving was harsh, but it was just a couple days before he had been planning to abandon Gon anyway.

Killua grabs his ankles, bending his spine into a hunched kind of stretch. He takes a deep breath. “I think,” he says, “I’ve been acting really, really stupid.”

"What do you mean?"

He leans back, squinting at the bright sky. "Well," he says. "I wanted something. And then someone offered it to me, and I said no."

Gon has thought that too, more than once, but he recognizes that it’s uncharitable. “You didn’t want to get hurt.”

“Yeah.” Killua laughs, a dark little sound.”It turns out it hurt anyway.”

Gon’s insides crunch up into a little ball. “What hurt? Kissing me?”

“Leaving you behind again, idiot.”

“Oh.” Gon watches the water break over the rocks, draw back, gear itself up, and crash again with a dramatic flourish of brine. They’re isolated, cupped by the shoreline and protected from the world outside this little landing. Gon is suspended between the sea and sky, between his past and future with Killua.

“So that means kissing me was okay, then?”

Killua glances over, startled. Gon sticks out his tongue, and Killua rolls his eyes.

“Yes, Gon. It was pretty okay.”

Gon kicks his feet, drumming his heels against the rock.

“So what does that mean?” he says. “Are you saying you want to be my boyfriend?”

Killua groans, burying his face in his hands. “I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. I don’t really think it’s a good idea.”

“But you want to?”

Killua’s eyes peek out over top of his fingertips. “I don’t have a choice in wanting to. I like you whether I think I should or not.”

Gon takes this in, turning over every piece of it. A long time ago, Hanzo made fun of him for wanting to win a fight fairly without beating his opponent. This is another impossible situation. He wants to be with Killua, but only if Killua wants to, and Killua wants to, but doesn’t want to want to. There has to be a way to thread the needle so neither of them ends up feeling bad.

There’s so much Gon doesn’t know about Killua, not just the stuff that’s happened in the past couple years. Now he knows that Killua was hiding big swaths of himself for a long time before that. He’s bad at understanding Killua’s feelings. He doesn’t know how all his cherished memories looked from Killua’s perspective. And Killua is bad at navigating around the loss that Gon’s suffered, the big black hole in the center of his life. If they’re together, for real, it’s not just going to be kissing and eating chocolate on a hotel carpet. It’s going to mean turning over all that dirt and seeing what comes up. Gon gets why Killua’s scared.

“Alluka travels around with you,” he says. “And she doesn’t have Nen, right?” Killua was pretty clear about that when they traveled to the World Tree together (“Alluka is just a normal kid, so be careful around her”). And yet he also claimed that Alluka saved Gon, through some mysterious process neither of them saw fit to explain. More secrets.

“Right,” Killua says. “But, Gon, I don’t know if you want to tag along with us. It’s not going to be like the old days. My life is boring, and I really like it that way.”

He’s right that that’s not what Gon wants. They’re moving in opposite directions. Killua wants to live peacefully with his sister, whereas Gon would do anything for some kind of excitement.

“Ughh!” Gon smacks his forehead with the heel of his hand, trying to get his brain to work better. “This is so hard to figure out!”

Killua puts both hands behind his head. “Now you see why I didn’t want you to ask me out.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Killua flushes. “It’s okay, Gon, I was just kidding around. You don’t have to apologize for that.”

Gon buries his hands in his hair. “Okay. How about this? You can stay on Whale Island for as long as you want. And then later, maybe you can come back and visit again. And maybe sometimes I can come visit you and Alluka. And we’ll just see what happens.”

Killua drops his hands, resting them on his knees. “That sounds okay, I guess.”

“Really?”

He exhales in a loud huff. “I guess. But what if it doesn’t work out?”

Gon throws his arms out to the side. “It’s already not working out now! How could it get worse?”

Killua frowns, picking this apart in his head. “You’re right. Yeah. That actually makes sense.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

Killua laughs, a peal of bright sound that strikes directly at the center of Gon’s chest. After all Killua’s hedging and scolding, he’d forgotten what it was like to see Killua happy.

“Okay,” Killua says. “Let’s see where it goes.”

“Yeah??”

“Yeah.”

“Killua!” Gon throws his arms around Killua’s neck, pulling him in tight. He’s not prepared for the rush that overwhelms him at the feeling of Killua’s body against his. He turns his face against the side of Killua’s head, too happy to look at him.

“Whoa,” Killua murmurs.

Gon pulls back, and moves his hands to cup around Killua’s cheeks. It’s exhilarating to hold Killua’s face between his hands, like he’s captured something that’s never quite been his before. Killua still looks a little worried. Gon rubs his thumb in the center of Killua’s forehead, encouraging him to relax.

“That feels nice,” Killua says, his eyes falling closed.

Gon leans forward and replaces his thumb with his lips, kissing Killua’s forehead. Killua tilts toward him, like a cat responding to being petted. Gon strokes his cheek, then leans down and gently kisses his mouth.

Killua melts against him, softening into the kiss. It’s different than before—back in the hotel, it felt charged and furtive. This is clean and bright, like the light shining off the waves. It is so simple to kiss someone who wants to be kissed. Gon slides both hands up and buries them in Killua’s hair, struck by the urge to hold onto him.

He pulls back to look at Killua. Killua's features catch light above from the sun, and below from the reflection off the water. He looks lit from within, a being wrought from white gold.

Killua's face settles into a serious expression.

“Gon. I have to tell you something.”

Gon’s heart kicks up in a fit of nerves. Killua hesitates, his muscles tensing where his torso rests against Gon’s.

“It’s late,” he says. “But. I love you too.”

Gon’s heart breaks into a million pieces and is made whole again in an instant. Nothing compares to this: not getting his Hunter license, not being selected for Greed Island, not even meeting Ging.

There’s nothing he can put into words, so he kisses Killua again. There are a thousand different flavors to this feeling, and he wants to learn all of them.

Killua gently pushes Gon away, palms on his shoulders.

“Don’t wanna leave Alluka alone.”

“Oh! Right!”

Gon scrambles to his feet, and he and Killua clamber back up the hill. Gon keeps checking next to him to make sure Killua is still there. Killua catches him doing it, and shoves his shoulder lightly with his open palm.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s left twice before. It’s impossible to believe him. Gon grabs Killua’s hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight.

“Just to make sure,” he says.

He thinks Killua might tease him, but Killua is quiet, his fingers flexing exploratively in Gon’s grip.

“Okay,” he says. He squeezes Gon’s hand once, then takes off running, dragging Gon for a few steps before Gon catches on and sprints after him.

He laughs into the wind, closing his eyes. The terrain is so familiar, he doesn’t need to look at it anyway. He narrows his focus until he is living inside the parts of his skin that Killua is touching.

It feels like having power again.

He opens his eyes, not wanting to miss a single second of Killua’s visit. But after this one, there will be another visit, and maybe another, if things are still good.

It’s the most he’s had to look forward to for a long time. It’s enough.


End file.
